


Aetas.

by deltachye



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Pain, Past Relationship(s), Reader-Insert, Romance, i just love kakashi (clenches fist) so mf much, ish, lol these tags r a mess idk what im doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-16 07:57:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15432510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltachye/pseuds/deltachye
Summary: [reader x kakashi hatake]horas non-numero nisi serenas: i count not the hours that lack the sun.





	1. AUTUMNA

“Wait; are you really here?”

You freeze, hearing fabric shift as the cot creaks. There is no need to look but you do anyways, turning slowly to face him as he struggles to prop himself up onto an elbow.

“You’re up,” you say flatly, stating the obvious in a weak attempt to uphold your duty of filling the silence. He fumbles blindly, left eye closed. The familiar scar across it runs raggedly, bold lightning striking a pale lilac sky. His thoughts are clearly scattered; you can almost sense the tangible emotional confusion just by looking at how different he is from the composed, masked shadow he usually occupies the world with. He clears his throat roughly, squinting at you through his bleary, dark eye.

“I didn’t think…?”

“I’m back,” you confirm for him in the same terse manner. It isn’t long before your resolve crumbles with guilt and you look to the side, tone softer and meeker and apologetic, “I just finished giving my report to the Fifth Hokage.”

“I see.” His voice is weak and he slurs, but the way the words trail off into empty quiet can’t be blamed on exhaustion. You know that he has more to say. He just _doesn’t_. He can, and he should, but he chooses not to.

The grip of your fists tighten at your side. You want to say ‘goodbye’, or better yet you want to leave and not look back, but you don’t do either. You can’t. Instead you allow yourself to be paralyzed, pulled in by stiflingly gravitas air and hastily buried love. It shows its hopeful face in times like these and you can’t bear to do anything about it.

“Do you want to take a walk?” he asks, plainly and unassuming. It’s a friendly offer, but it’s the kindness that sets your teeth on edge. There’s a lead-in to something you won’t like. The windows of the hospital are always kept closed while patients are asleep, but you still feel a draft on your spine and shiver.

You don’t say no; you still can’t to him. He knows this and he always has. It’s why he allows you to see the crescent moon smile slashed into his face. It _glows_ , and you hate him for it.

 

 

_AUSTER._

His steps stagger despite the crutches. The Fifth Hokage is running the village’s active ninjas into the ground, for good reason, but seeing Kakashi of all people like this makes your stomach turn sickly. Whatever mission he’d dragged himself back from had clearly taken a toll, but you don’t comment on it, knowing you would only get a cryptid answer in response. That was the way it always was from him. He was hardly genuine, giving runabout answers and false platitudes and smiles and promises that were never meant to be kept. And you played the fool for it.

The both of you say nothing to each other, clearly waiting. He seems to be actively testing your patience, waiting for you to break. You are a kunoichi of honour, who abides by Shinobi Law, and yet you feel the dreaded itch in your skull.

It isn’t until the both of you make it to the river that you surrender. Stopping halfway across the creaky bridge, you allow the cold wind to carry your words. It makes them icy and sharp; they cut like kunai blades. There is precision in your choice and he knows it. He’d put on his mask again, but you’d long since learnt to read the contours of Kakashi’s face, and the raised eyebrow makes your blood rush through your veins with increased desperation. It’s all you can do not to plead.

Whistling leaves shatter the silence; they’re turning into flakes of gold, now, a reminder that warmth will soon be lost to memory. You watch them swirl around him. His eyelashes cast a long shadow across his face in the low autumnal lighting, and you force yourself to look away. Days were getting shorter and the nights were unbearably lonely. But no matter how strong, how honourable, or how much you loved Kakashi, he was always too… far. It stemmed from fear. And you supposed you were a little too afraid yourself to allow yourself to let go of him, a man who feared being held. He’s smart enough to agree, and yet for once you wish that he, ever perfect, would _make a mistake_.

The dead leaves floated down the river as they were caught up by its lazy current, and once they’d danced enough, they sank under—vanishing forever. The chaste kiss Kakashi left on the top of your head burnt hotly in the frigid air. You hated, you _hated_ him for being like this, and you hated yourself most of all for letting it happen.

That night was the first frost.


	2. HIEMS

You can still feel him running his fingertips along the length of your spine as if touching each one is a holy, forbidden blessing.

It settles on you as a sweet cloud, enveloping you in dull peace of mind. The cold is vanquished for now, kept at bay like shadows in firelight, but you know… the embers will die fast. You know when you take a breath and the air is chilly without his lips on yours; when the tip of your nose goes numb without him there, curved around you. Without the acrid taste of desperation on the roof of your mouth you feel unanchored, floating without a current, but what finally sinks you is the realization that you’ll only end up back here again.

You’re awfully predictable. You already know, and yet you feel your heart sink when you re-open your eyes and see the bed is already empty. The open window flutters the rice-paper doors and you feel it bite your skin again, gnawing on your soul. There is no more firelight to protect you. Still, you do not draw anything around you for warmth. The storm can take you; and you wish it does, but he doesn’t.

The hot tears freeze on your eyelashes.

**_SEPTENTRIO._ **

_“I want you to go with Kakashi.”_

You’d thought that maybe it was a sick joke—The Legendary Sitting Duck played her bets on anything and everything, after all—but she had a serious look in her brown eyes that you couldn’t even hope to argue with. It was all you could do to go along with it with a straight face. 

A double jonin S-Ranked mission; you shouldn’t have had any time to dwell on your emotional turmoil. It was a shorter distance to travel than you had expected for an S-Rank, and no mission seemed too difficult with the infamous Copy Ninja at your side. You had placed high hopes on being able to grit your teeth and get through it in one shot. And yet, Kakashi was endearingly frustrating in the way that he always gave you what you least needed. In this case it was his own damn company in an enclosed, inescapable _prison_ of suffering.

“Can’t get past this snow storm,” he explained in that light-hearted tone you hate, because you know he’s hiding something and you’re always unable to catch what. The abandoned hut is dilapidated enough to be classified as a wreck, and frigid wind whistles in to nip at any poor inch of exposed skin. It must’ve been the house of a farmer some time ago, but the earth and the building have been long since neglected. It’s eerie and you shiver from reasons that aren’t the cold. You never liked the Land of Water. Maybe it has to do with your affiliation as a Leaf Ninja in the Land of Fire, but you hate winter. You can’t stand the thought of an endless death.

Kakashi’s right though, as much as you want to ignore him and forge on. The wind positively howls and the unfortunate hut moans despairingly, as if each one is its last. Each gust carries thick snow laced with dangerously sharp fragments of ice. There is frost clinging onto every part of your body that is only now beginning to thaw. It was obvious that your sense of direction would only be lost in an instant if you tried to navigate. All of the five senses were rendered useless in the bleak, infinite white. You’d never seen a snowstorm as bad as this before; it’s as if the land is actively trying to murder you. It was impossible to travel with so much snow on the ground, regardless, so you had no choice but to resign yourself to the situation. 

Kakashi had already put his bag down and was busy drawing out emergency blankets to stuff into the walls. He’s a soldier at heart, and you chide yourself for not acting the same and giving into your selfish delusions. You and he were here on business and that was all it had to be. Emotions were never meant to be shown; that was Shinobi Law. Felt? Perhaps, but the impossibly white snow seems to choke the air dreamily, and the ache in your heart is only just tolerable if you pretend it doesn’t exist.

You ignore him when he comes up behind you, but you can see him in the faint reflection on the dirt-stained window. Snow has pelted the outside glass, completely blocking the view outdoors with each crystalline snowflake. It’s dark and curtained, isolating you and he from God’s eyes. His expression is unreadable, but his words makes the blood in your face drop into your gut. The air stirs next to your nape and a hot itch creeps up your neck.

“I can’t light a fire in here, you know. It’s protocol to conserve warmth in the case of an emergency.”

He’s roundabout, as always. You and he are old enough to know better and act better and yet that _dumb_ , child-like flutter makes your stomach turn. Your hands are tightening on the arms you have crossed tightly around yourself, and although Kakashi clearly understands your reluctance, he puts a hand on your shoulder that makes you flinch so hard you step away. He sighs, less annoyed and more exasperated.

“Hey…”

You feel that you don’t want to hear your name in his mouth and yet you desperately _do_. He doesn’t say anything else, but the hand creeps back onto your shoulder, more lightly and hesitant. It’d be easy to knock him away, but where would you go? The hut has one room that’s 5 meters across at most, and you realize that’s his strategy. He plans and writes and executes with fearsome accuracy and it’s all you can do to frown in his face.

“Things aren’t going to change,” you spit out, a desperate last-ditch effort to save yourself. It’s an empty warning and you are fully aware that he knows this. The fingers twitch and you feel them dance up your spine, on your hip, the inside of your thigh, the curve of your jaw—

When you flinch again, Kakashi doesn’t move away. He steps one step closer and the other hand is on you, too. Warmth pours from his chest onto your back. It feels like he’s caging you and you look back, panicked and on edge, only to see the softness in his coal black iris. His hands dip low until they barely hook onto the end of your clothes; it’s respectful. Since when had he been respectful…?

“The snow will subside,” he says ‘reassuringly’, with unfounded confidence, and you hear it so loudly in the snow-blessed silence. You _hear_ him. 

The storm outside is not what he means, and that’s why you get it this time. For once you wish you didn’t. For once you wish he’d just go on with his awkward half-chuckle and his stupid ditzy demeanour, the one that’s him but not. Only, you can understand him now, and you don’t like it. You don’t like it because you now realize he’s feeding you hope, and you don’t know where the cunning tactician plans to lead you. You don’t like not knowing; you don’t know that you can trust him right now.

“I think… for once, we should be honest,” he murmurs. It’s neutral but even Kakashi Hatake can’t hide the edge of ever-hated _emotion_ on the tinge of his tones. 

Suddenly the heaviness in your heart thaws, and you can see the viridity of life in the distance. You feel a cold trickle of dread come with the arrival of this sudden burst of hopefulness, but when Kakashi doesn’t move, you think that maybe—once—you can attempt to buy into the illusion of optimism. After all, people seem to believe in spring despite the winter season. Maybe once, you could stand to see if lies were lies. 

He senses you underneath him and adjusts accordingly, but you stop him by grabbing his wrist. You don’t want him to move around you anymore; you’re quite sick of him fulfilling his needs by taking advantage of yours. You want to see what he looks like when he’s vulnerable. You don’t want to take what he gives you—you want it all. Masks off. You want to see him grow and be honest to you. To himself. 

Grips soften and suddenly you feel him cradling you with a nervous eagerness that seems _unbecoming_ of him. His hair is silvery ash; it’s a dirty mockery of purity. But it tickles, and strands flutter when you laugh, feeling a smile pressed up on your neck.

It seems warm here despite the storm.


	3. VER

Most, if not all Konohagakure Shinobi hail from the village and serve it until they die. It’s a given fact. There is loyalty attached to the earth that the water of birth is spilt on, and it is a loyalty that you will never quite understand. 

You aren’t from here, and everybody knows it.

You aren’t exactly a defector of another Hidden Village or anything; refugees are not a large part of ninja culture. When you live surrounded by ninja, there is constant fear of war, but no hope of escape. Relocation is not a whim; it’s a passing dream. The walls confine you whether you fight for a banner or serve noodles in the street. You become branded by the symbol on your forehead if fortune lands you among the Great Five.

Only, you never experienced such a thing; you are a ninja, now, but you were never born to be one. Your parents were part of a nomadic peoples who treasured such things like peace and harmony with the Earth. There was a sort of unspoken condescension towards the men who slobbered over political lines when borders were nothing but a figment of imagination to you. You used to travel from land to land freely, Great Five or not, never caring about where ‘home’ really was. Home was with your people. But that time seems so far, now… well, it’s nearly romantic. 

It is no surprise that your clan was completely wiped out. The War was fearsome and especially harsh on those unaffiliated because it was easier to shrug and claim it as collateral damage. Nobody had any real fighting ability, so they were simply extinguished in a single breath. How you ended up in the Leaf… it could’ve been anywhere. You could’ve gone to the Sand or even the Mist. You could’ve gone nowhere, too. Died right there on the spot. Life could have been different for you in so many ways. But at the time, it was because the Leaf was the one to feel guiltiest for their wrongdoings, and the sheltering of an orphan seemed to be the best course of action to right the moral compass of an emotional ninja passing you by. Without him and the leaf carved onto his arm, you wouldn’t have learnt the Shinobi way of the leaf. But despite the fact that it is displayed on your body now, it doesn’t quite seem authentic. There’s something off about it; but you know better, and you know it’s _you_ that’s the problem.

The people of Konohagakure grow up with each other. They live with each other, fight with each other, die with each other—and to you, the air is stifling. _Brotherhood_. You can hardly stand it. A whisper carries on the wind. To have the freedom of new faces, no judgement… people with no memories of your past shades? You can hardly understand how the people here can… _love_ each other so much. Perhaps it’s in the bonds you haven’t been able to make quite the same. You want to say you’re better than it; that you won’t give your life to some ridiculous notion like _patriotism_. 

And yet Kakashi Hatake makes you realize _why_.

He loves the village. He loves its people, right or wrong. He loves the same mountain face and the same tiding wind and the same bubbly creek and the same rustling leaves. He loves you. He’d die for it. 

For the first time in a long time it makes you remember what home really means.

_**FAVONIUS.** _

You stir, feeling nothing at first before a wave of pain rolls through your body. It’s a bitter pain that aches rather than stings, filling your empty head with a constant, stupid drum of _it hurts_. The ceiling is slow to come into focus and you recognize it as Konohagakure’s hospital—you’ve spent enough time here to know those off-white tiles when you see them. 

The muscles in your abdomen and neck burn whenever you try to shift yourself, and uselessly it’s all you can manage to open and close your hand. The memories flow back to you slowly, gaining momentum with each breath. Right, your team had gone down in the fight… actually, you’re quite surprised you’re even alive at all. At the time you had resolved yourself to death, throwing up a ninjutsu in a pathetic last-ditch effort. You hadn’t believed it would actually work.

“Awake, I see.”

The voice startles you—you hadn’t expected any company. Your eyes move to the source even though your body doesn’t, and with a jolt of the heart you see a masked face peer down at you.

“Kakashi,” you gasp. “What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asks, raising his eyebrow with a bit of hurt. “I’m looking after you. You’ve been asleep for two days.”

“Oh, God…” Wincing, you suck in your core and attempt to prop yourself up. Kakashi sucks his teeth and grasps your shoulder when your body gives and begins to sink back into the cot. 

“Relax. Your team is fine. Lady Tsunade tended to them and said that they’ll make a full recovery.”

You’re unable to hide your immense relief. For somebody who isn’t blood of the leaf and is constantly reminded of the fact, you treat your squadmates as family. You’re glad to hear that they were saved. Kakashi, however, looks a little less pleased and his fingers seem to twitch on your shoulder blade. 

“I was… worried, you know.” His grip tightens. “When word came back that _you_ were in serious condition… I think the exact words were ‘she’s about to die’. Do you know… what that did to me?”

He seems to be musing into open space in that lackadaisical way of his, but his eye is on you and you feel exposed. Kakashi has many forms and personalities, as all Shinobi do. The lazy one, the one that tells you “I won’t let you die” with a smile, the one that tells you “I will die for you” in a stern grimace… He seems to feel you bracing yourself and the darkness in his eye softens to charcoal, his gaze darting away as he forms his thoughts under the cover of black eyelashes.

“It’s the way that our life is,” you whisper, unable to raise your voice but also feeling that it would crack if you tried. Your jaw feels tight with grief, but you can’t up and lie to him the way he can to you. “We’re soldiers, Kakashi. Not a day goes by where I don’t wonder if it’s the last day I’ll see you.”

“Does it have to be that way?” he replied, his voice also dropping to a husky shell of what it normally is. Despite the pain you reach your hand over and grasp his, curling your fingers over his own.

“…yes.”

The silence is sore. His thumb traces your radius slowly, but with deliberate intention, as if each movement is to memorize the way your skin feels against his own. You know that one day the roles will be reversed and you’ll be sitting there where he is, carving apples, waiting, _hoping_ for him to wake up in this same hospital bed—you pray that one day you won’t be standing at the memorial stone, looking down at a hopelessly familiar name tacked onto a list of many, and it scares you to think of a day where Kakashi stands alone again.

You know that he won’t say anything like ‘can we change?’. You know because you wouldn’t. You don’t know why you wouldn’t. There just seems to be something in you now, something precious that you have to protect, even if it means exchanging your life. You know he has a lot to say but there aren’t any more words for it: _I missed you, I’m scared for you, I worry about you…_ it was all said and done already. This is just the leaf way, isn’t it? To love something bigger than yourself?

“No. Things have to be different.”

The way he says it is ominous and you feel your heart drop. Which Kakashi is it? His hand is tightening into a fist under yours and you slowly remove it, only to have him place his larger hand back over yours and squeeze it tightly. His eyes are still lowered but you can see him consciously making an effort not to shake.

“Lady Tsunade told me there was a complication with your surgery.”

“…and?” There’s something left hanging off the end of his sentence, and when he looks up to say it, you can hardly hear him.

“You’re carrying a child.”


	4. AESTAS

When you run, you run so quickly your entire body is pitching forwards into the ground, threatening to topple your balance. Your arms feel like they’re windmilling uselessly, and your legs don’t seem to move fast enough despite the rush of wind in your face. There are jutsu that can get you there faster, but you forget about every single last one of them, solely focused on the sight of him in the distance. 

“Kak—!”

The breath hardly leaves your lips before his arms encircle you tightly, pressing you up to his chest. Your momentum propels the both of you and you swing in a circle, your fingers clutching his shoulders. Kakashi Hatake is not known to be an openly affectionate person, but to be fair, it’s been a while. His team gladly meanders to look up at the clouds or around the trees with newfound amazement as to give him a slice of privacy.

Your face feels flushed when you finally pull away and you’re grinning in such a stupid way that you can’t even bring yourself to stop. You’re practically dangling in his arms, toes tracing in the dust. The thoughts are left on the tip of your tongue when he kisses you, through his mask like an idiot—maybe he just can’t wait, or maybe he’s still trying to uphold his moronic ‘cool image’, but either way you must be an idiot too because you melt right into him. 

“I’m home,” he breathes after letting you go, but your fingers are still loosely linked as if neither of you can bear to let go again, not even for a moment. It’s sickening, almost, how deeply in love you have fallen at this age where you should know better. But you suppose you don’t. The summer breeze warms your words:

“Welcome _home_.”

**_sol._ **

“Kakashi, you’d better not be slacking!”

His head jerks up; while he fumbles from being disturbed in his sleep, he moves to sweep an all-too-familiar orange-bound book underneath a scroll. It’s too late and you can only cross your arms over yourself with exasperation. 

“You _are_ ,” you sigh accusatorily. But you aren’t actually that upset by his predictable behaviour. The sight of the bundle pressed protectively to his chest calms you and you walk over, crouching so that you’re eye-level with your daughter. She’s sleeping soundly for once, which is a huge relief; the Hatake girl puts up a fight that’s feared by everybody in the village—something inherited by both parents, of course. She rustles, her tiny nose smushed up to Kakashi’s chest as she fidgets in her sleep.

“Lost track of time,” Kakashi excuses breezily, as he always does. You ignore him, as you always do. Whenever there’s important words that weigh on the heart, you and he know better—but for now, your attention is occupied elsewhere. You tuck thin, impossibly soft hair behind one of the baby girl’s ears, and the soft smile on your face feels muted despite the strong warmth of love that swells over your heart. 

The both of you haven’t yet learnt to fully give. You don’t think the time is right for you to be able to. For now, it’s all you can do to keep your fingers crossed that Kakashi Hatake comes back safe and sound. For him, he vows to protect, already knowing the bitter, cold taste of loss. It’s more important now than ever. 

Family was merely a detached idea for you, and you suppose it was for him, too. But it comes and grows as you move forwards, like stubborn wildflowers in summer on the side of the path: dainty, but forever sturdy in its roots, always perennial. You have your own to hold in your arms now. You know what it means to love something bigger than yourself, even though she is so fantastically small. 

He hands her to you and your fingers brush one another. Kakashi used to be so distant, always far but not enough, always close but not enough. It was like the scent of a wild rose on your palate—easy to forget, yet always in the vestiges of your memory. 

In autumn you said goodbye to him. In winter you missed him. In spring you realized why people write poems about love. In summer, you… 

His nose is cool on the crook of your neck as he embraces the both of you, encircling you both in a warmth that is still welcome despite the sticky summer heat. He hums something in a lazy mumble, probably ‘let’s go to bed’ or something of the sort, but you close your eyes and push back against him comfortably instead. 

“Hey, Kakashi?”

“Yeah?”

You pull away and lay a hand on the side of his cheek, staring up into his hazy dark eyes as he looks back down through his lashes. There are unspoken words that pass between you and him, and through the daughter between the both of your chests, but you say it out loud to affirm it anyways,

“I love you.”

There is depth and varied reality to the characters Kakashi parades around the world under his masks, but the raw hoarseness of his voice and the crack of his half-crooked smile remind you what wild roses smell like. When he kisses your fingertips, it feels like what summer leaves rustling in sun-drenched wind sound like. 

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> find this elsewhere: https://deltachye.tumblr.com/post/176279347101/aetas


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